Nosebleed
by Petronia
Summary: Isumi has a Japanese malady; Yang Hai has a Chinese home remedy. Fangirl Mandarin alert.


**Nosebleed**

_Holidays '03 Giftfic: beeblebabe_

During that first week some of the other pros would come up and ask questions like, "Hey Yang Hai, that Japanese _yuansheng_ with you – he any good at all?" Often as not right to Isumi's face. And Yang Hai would shrug and say, "Why are you asking me? Get him to play a game, see for yourself." Then he'd snag another chunk of tofu preserve, and whoever it was would pay attention to his own meal or change the subject or go away, and maybe some hours later he'd stop Yang Hai in the corridor and say, "Hey, the Japanese kid, he's pretty okay. Got a few moves to him." And after a few days all of them forgot that Isumi hadn't been around since forever, even Li _Laoshi._

That was about the extent of the trouble it caused for Yang Hai. He was aware of what the opportunity to stay at the Weiqi Institute meant to Isumi, though, and thus how much _renqing_ Isumi would feel he owed Yang Hai if he were allowed, because Isumi was that type. So he played it down, and didn't treat Isumi like a guest, more like a roommate he'd been assigned from the beginning. That was just as easy, because Isumi didn't take up much space. Not physical, and not as a _person;_ not what you'd expect from a foreigner. Yang Hai looked at him and couldn't get any sense of what he was like back home, whether he fitted in by being quiet in the same way, or what his everyday surroundings had been. It was like he didn't bring any baggage to China beside his skinny own Japanese self. Everything else got left at the airport, in pursuit of the game.

He liked that about Isumi. It was the major point they had in common.

* * *

One morning he'd taken his shower and wandered back into the room, looking for his shirt which had mysteriously disappeared in the interim, when he heard Isumi make a muffled sound somewhere behind him. Yang Hai turned around and found Isumi standing sort of hunched over, hand cupped in front of his face.

"Hey," he said. "Are you all right?"

"Uhh," Isumi said. And then, "I... I think I have a nosebleed."

"Beijing's climate," Yang Hai said with feeling. "Here, sit down. Sit – no, you won't ruin anything – put your head back. Pinch. ...Give me a sec, I'll go get you some cotton."

He found cotton balls in the bathroom (and also his shirt that he'd apparently slung over the top of the door). Ran the washcloth Isumi was using under a cold tap, squeezed off the excess water, came back with that as well. Isumi was leaning back in the computer chair, still meekly pinching the bridge of his nose. Yang Hai waited until he glanced around, then dropped the washcloth over the top of his face. Isumi squeaked.

"It's cold!"

"That's the point."

"Is it supposed to help?"

"It should – remedy of grannies. Here." Yang Hai pressed the cotton into Isumi's hand, then reached over and folded the damp washcloth over his forehead so he could see what he was doing. "Climate," he said again. "I had hell with it when I first came. Beijing's so dry, you leave cut fruit on the table and it shrivels. Back home it grows mold before the day is out."

"In Yunnan?" Isumi asked, fumbling with the cotton. Yang Hai shrugged. He picked up a random magazine from his desk and sat down on the bed to flip through it, in order to give the guy a bit of privacy for stuffing things up his nose. A companionable silence ensued.

"I don't know where that is at all," Isumi said suddenly. "I'm sorry." Yang Hai looked up and met embarrassed dark eyes. He blinked, leaning back.

"No reason why you should," he said. "There's not much to know. It's as far down south as you can get, mostly famous for-" _Poetic landscapes,_ he thought, _quaint minority tribes-_"countryside, and it's a lot warmer than Beijing."

"And wetter?"

"Try better," Yang Hai said, surprising himself. He folded his arms behind his head, remembering green slopes shrouded in mist; things he didn't really have words for, because he never talked about them. "Every season is like spring in Kunming, it's an old saying. Mountains and lakes on all sides – more pleasant place to live than up north, when you get down to it. As long as you don't mind heat and humidity." And then he stopped short, realising the next thing out of his mouth was going to be _you should visit some time,_ and struck by the incongruity. _He_ didn't visit back home much, anymore. And Isumi?

He couldn't even picture Isumi, outside of the Institute. Outside of the game.

"I'd like to visit there someday, then," Isumi said. Then, "Do you have time for a game?" Yang Hai stared at him for a second.

"Keep you company, you mean?" he said finally. "Why not. Can you even see, though?"

"Of course I can see," Isumi said, with the slightest trace of indignation. Yang Hai shook his head, but he was smiling as he reached for the board.

* * *

Yang Hai had lived at the Weiqi Institute for seven, going on eight years. He'd left Kunming when he was a kid not all that much older than Le Ping (though, he hoped, more mature). In the interim he'd taught himself several foreign languages, had been out of the country a dozen times attending pan-Asian competitions, and by his hometown standards had taken on impossibly cosmopolitan airs. He'd never really forgotten what it had been like at first, though, which was why he watched out for Le Ping. And, by extension, for Isumi. Or so he assumed: there were some people he found hard to leave alone that way, something in their eyes that said all they needed was that one extra push at the right time.

Just that extra bit of care.

* * *

_— Montreal, December 2003_


End file.
